Book: The Shagganappi

E >> E. Pauline Johnson >> The Shagganappi




But the buckboards were spinning rapidly nearer, and nearer. Yes, there
was his father, Factor MacIntyre, of the Hudson's Bay, driving the first
rig, but who was that beside him?--Billy? No, not Billy. "Oh, it's
_mother_!" fairly yelled Jerry. And the next moment he was in her arms.

"Couldn't keep her away, simply couldn't!" stormed Mr. MacIntyre. "No,
sir, she had to come--one hundred and seventeen miles by the clock!
Couldn't trust me! Couldn't trust Billy! Just _had_ to come herself!"
And the genial Factor stamped around the little camp, wringing Five
Feathers' hand, and watching with anxious look the pale face and thin
fingers of his smallest son.

"Oh, father, mother, he's been so good!" said Jerry, excitedly, nodding
towards the Indian.

"Good? I should think so!" asserted Mr. MacIntyre. "Why, boy, do you
know you would have been lame all your life if it hadn't been for Five
Feathers here? Best Indian in all the Hudson's Bay country!"

"Yes, dearie; the best Indian in all the Hudson's Bay country," echoed
Mrs. MacIntyre, with something like a tear in her voice.

"Bet your boots! Best Indian in all the Hudson's Bay country!"
re-echoed Billy, who had arrived, driving the other buckboard. But Five
Feathers only sat silent. Then, looking directly at Billy, he said, "You
ride day and night, too. You nearly kill that horse?"

"Yes, I nearly did," admitted Billy.

"Good brother you. You my brother, too," said the Indian, holding out
his hand; and Billy fairly wrung that slender, brown hand--that hand,
small and kind as a woman's.

* * * * * * * *

This all happened long ago, and last year Jerry MacIntyre graduated from
McGill University in Montreal with full honors in medicine. He had three
or four splendid offers to begin his medical career, but he refused them
all, smilingly, genially, and to-day he is back there, devoting his life
and skill to the tribe of Five Feathers, "best Indian in all the
Hudson's Bay country."



Sons of Savages

Life-Training of the Redskin Boy-child


The redskin boy-child who looks out from his little cradle-board on a
world of forest through whose trails his baby feet are already being
fitted to follow is not many hours old before careful hands wrap him
about with gay-beaded bands that are strapped to the carven and colored
back-board that will cause him to stand erect and upright when he is a
grown warrior. His small feet are bound against a foot support so that
they are exactly straight; that is to start his walk in life aright.

He is but an atom in the most renowned of the savage races known to
history, a people that, according to the white man's standard, is
uncivilized, uneducated, illiterate, and barbarous. Yet the upbringing
of every Red Indian male child begins at his birth, and ends only when
he has acquired the learning considered essential for the successful
man to possess, and which has been predetermined through many ages by
many wise ancestors.

His education is twofold, and always is imparted in "pairs" of
subjects--that is, while he is being instructed in the requisites of
fighting, hunting, food getting, and his national sports, he takes
with each "subject" a very rigid training in etiquette, for it would
be as great a disgrace for him to fail in manners of good breeding as
to fail to take the war-path when he reaches the age of seventeen.

FIRST, COURAGE

The education of an Iroquois boy is begun before he can even speak. The
first thing he is taught is courage--the primitive courage that must
absolutely despise fear--and at the same time he is thoroughly grounded
in the first immutable law of Indian etiquette, which is that under no
conceivable conditions must one ever stare, as the Redskin races hold
that staring marks the lowest level of ill-breeding.

SECOND, RELIGIOUS TRAINING

His second subject is religious training. While he is yet a baby in
arms he is carried "pick-a-back" in his mother's blanket to the ancient
dances and festivals, where he sees for the first time, and in his
infant way participates in, the rites and rituals of the pagan faith,
learning to revere the "Great Spirit," and to anticipate the happy
hunting grounds that await him after death.

At the end of a long line of picturesque braves and warriors who circle
gracefully in the worshipping dance, his mother carries him, her
smooth, soft-footed, twisting step lulling him to sleep, for his tiny,
copper-colored person, swinging to every curve of the dance, soon
becomes an unconscious bit of babyhood. But the instant he learns to
walk, he learns, too, the religious dance-steps, Then he rises to the
dignity of being allowed to slip his hand in that of his father and
take his first important steps in the company of men.

Accompanying his religious training is the all-important etiquette of
accepting food without comment. No Indian talks of food, or discusses it
while taking it. He must neither commend nor condemn it, and a child who
remarks upon the meals set before him, however simple the remark may be,
instantly feels his disgrace in the sharpest reproof from his parents.
It is one of the unforgivable crimes.

TRICKS OF FOOD-GETTING

His third subject is to master the tricks of food-getting. His father,
or more often his grandfather, takes him in hand at an early age, and
minutely trains him in all the art and artifice of the great life-fight
for food both for himself and for those who may in later years be
dependent on him. He is drilled assiduously in hunting, fishing,
trapping, in game calls, in wood and water lore; he learns to paddle
with stealth, to step in silence, to conceal himself from the scent and
sight of bird and beast, to be swift as a deer, keen as an eagle, alert
as a fox.

He is admonished under no conditions, save in that of extreme hunger or
in self-defence, to kill mating game, or, in fact, to kill at all save
for food or to obtain furs for couch purposes. Wanton slaying of wild
things is unknown among the uncivilized Red Indians. When they want
occupation in sport or renown, they take the warpath against their
fellow-kind, where killing will flaunt another eagle-feather in their
crest, not simply another pair of antlers to decorate their tepee.

With this indispensable lesson in the essentials of living always comes
the scarcely less momentous one of the utter unimportance of youth. He
is untiringly disciplined in the veneration of age, whether it be in man
or woman. He must listen with rapt attention to the opinions and advice
of the older men. He mast keep an absolute silence while they speak,
must ever watch for opportunities to pay them deference.

AGE BEFORE LINEAGE

If he happen, fortunately, to be the son of a chief of ancient lineage,
the fact that he is of blood royal will not excuse him entering a door
before some aged "commoner." Age has more honor than all his patrician
line of descent can give him. Those lowly born but richly endowed with
years must walk before him; he is not permitted to remain seated if some
old employee is standing even at work; his privilege of birth is as
nothing compared with the honor of age, even in his father's hireling.

The fourth thing he must master is the thorough knowledge of medicinal
roots and herbs--antidotes for snake-bite and poison--also the various
charms and the elementary "science" of the medicine man, though the
occupation of the latter must be inherited, and made in itself a life
study. With this branch of drilling also is inculcated the precept of
etiquette never to speak of or act slightingly of another's opinion,
and never to say the word "No," which he is taught to regard as a rude
refusal. He may convey it by manner or action, but speak it--never.

And during the years he is absorbing this education he is unceasingly
instructed in every branch of warfare, of canoe-making, of fashioning
arrows, paddles and snow-shoes. He studies the sign language, the
history and legends of his nation; he familiarizes himself with the
"archives" of wampum belts, learning to read them and to value the great
treaties they sealed. He excels in the national sports of "lacrosse,"
"bowl and beans," and "snow snake," and when, finally, he goes forth
to face his forest world he is equipped to obtain his own living with
wisdom and skill, and starts life a brave, capable, well-educated
gentleman, though some yet call him an uncivilized savage.



Jack o' Lantern


I

Everybody along the river knew old "Andy" Lavergne; for years he had
been "the lamplighter," if such an office could exist in the rough
backwoods settlement that bordered that treacherous stream in the timber
country of northern Ontario. He had been a great, husky man in his time,
who could swing an axe with the best of the lumbermen, but an accident
in a log jam had twisted his sturdy legs and hips for life, and laid him
off active service, and now he must cease to accompany the great gangs
of choppers in the lumber camps, and do his best to earn a few honest
dollars about the settlement and the sawmill. So the big-hearted mill
hands paid him good money for doing many odd jobs, the most important of
which was to keep a lantern lighted every dark night, both summer and
winter, to warn them of the danger spot in the Wildcat river, that raced
in its treacherous course between the mill and their shanty homes on the
opposite shore.

This danger spot was a perfect snarl of jagged rocks, just below the
surface of the black waters that eddied about in tiny whirlpools, deadly
to any canoe in summer, and still more deadly in winter, for the ice
never formed here as in the rest of the river. Only a thin, deceptive
coating ever bridged that death hole, and the man who mistook it for
solid ice would never live to cross that river again. So, on the high
bank above this death trap old Andy lighted his lantern, year in and
year out. Sometimes he was accompanied by his old grey horse, who
followed him about like a dog. Sometimes little Jacky Moran, his young
neighbor, went to help him on very stormy or windy nights. Sometimes
both Jacky and the horse would go, and as a reward for his assistance
old Andy would always lift the boy to the grey's back and let him ride
home. Then one wet spring old Andy got rheumatism in his poor, twisted
legs, and the first night he was unable to leave his shanty Jacky came
whistling in at nightfall and offered to take the lantern up stream
alone. Andy consented gratefully, and, with the horse at his heels,
Jacky set out for the bank above the dangerous spot.

"I believe, old Grey, it's the lantern you love as much as you love
Andy," laughed the boy as he struck a match and sheltered its flame from
the wind. "Here you are following me and the lantern just as if you
belonged to us, or as if Andy were here. How's that?" But the old grey
only stood watching the lamp-lighting. His long, pathetic face was very
expressive, but, try as he would, he could not speak and tell the boy
that he had learned to love him as well as Andy. So he only put his soft
nose down to Jacky's shoulder, and in his own silent way coaxed the boy
to mount and ride home, which Jacky promptly did, bursting into the old
Frenchman's shanty with the news that the grey had followed the lantern.

"Don't you believe it, Jacky," chuckled Andy. "The grey loves the
lantern, I know, but it's you he's followed. You see that horse knows
a lot, and he knows that his old master is never likely to light that
lantern again, and he wants you for his master now."

"Well, he may have me," smiled the boy. "We'll just light up together
after this." Which they certainly did, for that was the beginning of
the end. Andy could never hobble much further than his own door, and
Jacky took upon his young shoulders the duties of both lamp-lighting
and feeding and caring for his now constant companion, the grey.

"I see your Jacky is helping old Andy since he's been laid up," said
Alick Duncan, the big foreman, some weeks later, as he paddled across
the river with the boy's father.

"Oh, he likes Andy," replied Mr. Moran, "and he likes the old horse,
and he likes the work, too. He feels important every time he lights
that lantern to steer the mill hands off danger.

"Speaking of the horse," went on the big foreman, "they're short one up
at the lumber camp. The boss sent down yesterday that we had to get him
an extra horse by hook or crook. They've started hauling logs. It would
be a great thing if Andy could sell that nag at a good figure. It would
help him out. He's hard up for cash, I bet. I'll speak to him to-night
about it."

At supper Tom Moran mentioned what a fine thing it was for Andy that
there was an urgent demand for a horse at the lumber camp; that he could
get twice the money for old Grey that the animal was worth. Mrs. Moran
agreed that it would be a great help to old Andy, but Jacky's small face
went white, he ceased his boyish chatter, and his little throat refused
to swallow a mouthful of food.

As soon as he could, he escaped, slipped outside, and made for Andy's
shanty as fast as his young legs could carry him. With small ceremony
he flung open the door, to find the old Frenchman sitting in his barrel
chair, a single tallow candle on the shelf above his head, his ever
present pipe between his lips, and his lame leg stuck up on a bench
before the tumbledown stove, where a good spruce fire crackled and
burned. For the first time the extreme poverty of the place struck
Jacky's senses. He realized instantly, but for the first time, how much
in need of money the poor old cripple must be, but, nevertheless, his
voice shook as he exclaimed, "Oh, Andy, you won't sell old Grey? Oh,
you won't, will you?"

"Why not, youngster?" asked a deep voice from the gloom beyond the
stove, and Jacky saw with a start that Alick Duncan was already there
with his offer to buy.

"Because," began the boy, "because--well, because he helps us, Andy and
me; he helps us light up at night." It was a lame excuse, and poor Jacky
knew it.

"It appears to me Andy ain't doing much lighting up these days," went on
the foreman. "And you know, kid, Andy's old and sick, and money don't
come easy to him. If he gets one square meal of pork and beans a day,
he's getting more than I think he does. The horse is no use to him now.
He can't even pay for its keep when next winter comes. He can't use it,
anyhow, and Andy needs the money."

But the boy had now recovered his balance.

"But timber hauling would kill old Grey. He wouldn't last any time at
it; he's too old," he argued.

"That's so, sunny," said the foreman; "he sure can't last long at that
work, but don't you see Andy will have his money, even if the horse does
peg out?"

"But--but Grey will die," said the boy tremulously.

"Maybe," answered the foreman, "but Andy will have something to live on,
and that is more important."

"But I'll help Andy," cried the boy enthusiastically. "I'm used to the
lighting up now. I can do all the work. Can't the mill hands go on
paying him just the same as ever? Can't they, Andy? I'll do the
lamp-lighting for you, and we'll just keep old Grey. Won't you, Andy?
Won't you?"

The boy was at Andy's shoulder, his thin young fingers clutched the old
shirt-sleeve excitedly, his voice arose, high and shrill and earnest.

"Why, boy," said the old Frenchman, "I didn't know you cared so much.
_I_ don't want to sell Grey, and I _won't_ sell him if you help me with
my work for the mill hands."

Alick Duncan rose to his feet, his big, hearty laugh ringing out as
Jacky seized his hand with the words, "There, Mr. Duncan, Andy _won't_
sell Grey. He says so. You heard him."

The big foreman stooped, picked up the boy, and swung him on his
shoulder as if he had been a kitten.

"All right, little Jack o' Lantern, do as you like. We mill hands will
go on with Andy's pay, only you help him all you can--and maybe he'll
keep the old grey--just for luck."

"I _know_ it's for luck," laughed Jacky. "The grey knows so much. Why,
Mr. Duncan, he knows _everything_; he knows as much as the mill hands."

"I dare say," said the big foreman, dryly. "If he didn't he wouldn't
have even horse sense."

"But why do you call me that--'Jack o' Lantern'?" asked the boy from his
perch on the big man's shoulder.

"Because I thought the name suited you," smiled the foreman. "I've often
seen the little Jack o' Lantern hovering above the marshes and swales,
a dancing, pretty light, moving about to warn woodsmen of danger spots,
just as your lantern, Jacky, warns the rivermen of that nasty 'wildcat'
place in the river."

"But," said the boy, "dad has always told me that the Jack o' Lantern is
a foolish light, that it deceives people, that it misleads them, that
sometimes they follow it and then get swamped in the marshes."

"Yes, but folks know enough to _not_ follow your lantern, boy," answered
the foreman seriously. "Your light is a warning, not an invitation."

"Well, the warning light will always be there, as long as I have legs to
carry it," assured Jacky, as the big foreman set him down on the floor.
Then--"And when I fail, I'll just send the grey."

They all laughed then, but none of them knew that, weeks later, the
boy's words would come true.

II

It was late in January, and the blackest night that the river had ever
known. A furious gale drove down from the west and the very stars were
shut in behind a gloomy sky. Little Jacky Moran trimmed his lantern,
filled it with oil, whistled for Grey, and set forth as the black night
was falling. The oncoming darkness seemed to outdo itself. Before he
was half way up the river, night fell, and he found that he could see
but a very few feet before him, although it was not yet half-past five
o'clock. At six the men would leave the mill over the river, and,
journeying afoot across the ice, would reach home in safety if the
lantern were lighted, and if not, any or all of them might be plunged
into the treacherous "Wild Cat," with no hope of ever reaching shore
alive.

"He called me Jack o' Lantern," the boy said to himself. "It's a
dancing, deceiving light, but he'll find to-night that I'll deceive
nobody." And through the darkness the child plodded on. Behind him
walked the stiff-kneed old horse, solemn-faced and faithful, following
the lantern with stumbling gait, his soft nose, as ever, very near the
boy's shoulder. The way seemed endless, and Jacky, with stooped and
huddled shoulders, bent his head to the wind and forged on. Then, just
as he was within fifty yards of the turn that led up to the danger spot,
an unusually wild gust swept his cap from his head and sent it bounding
off the narrow footpath. Boylike, he reached for it, and failing to
recapture it, started in pursuit. In the darkness he did not see the
little ledge of earth and rock that hung a few feet above a "dip" on the
left side, and in his hurried chase he suddenly plunged forward, and
was hurled abruptly to a level far below the footpath. He fell heavily,
badly. One foot got twisted somehow, and as he landed he heard a faint
sharp "crack" in the region of his shoe. Something seemed to grow numb
right up to his knee. He tried to struggle to his feet, but dropped down
into a wilted little heap. Then he realized with horror that he was
unable to stand. For a moment he was bewildered with pain and the utter
darkness, for in his fall the lantern had rolled with him, then gone
out. The boy struck a match, and with but little difficulty lighted the
lantern. It seemed strange that the gale had ceased so suddenly, until,
in looking about, he saw that he was in a hollow, and the wind was
roaring above his head. He was quite sheltered where he lay, but his
brief gratitude for this gave way to horrified dismay when he discovered
that the light, too, was sheltered--that the ledge of earth and rock
arose between him and the river bank, that he could never reach the
dreaded danger spot with his warning light, and, near to it though he
was, the flame was completely obscured from the sight of anyone crossing
the ice.

For a moment the situation overwhelmed him. He sat and shivered. The
agony of his injured foot was now asserting itself above the first
numbness, and the realization that he was failing to warn the mill
hands, that he was only a Jack o' Lantern after all, seized on his young
heart and brain like a torturing claw. Despair settled down on him,
blacker, more terrible than the coming night. He fancied he could hear
the mill hands crash through the death hole, and he called wildly,
"Help! Oh, somebody help me!" all the time knowing that the shanties
were too far away for anyone there to hear, and that the footpath above
him was too lonely for any chance lumberman to be taking at this hour.
No one ever passed that way but himself, and in the old days Andy and
the grey--oh, he had not thought of the grey--where had the animal gone?
Instantly he whistled, called, whistled again, and over the ledge above
his head looked a long, serious face, with great solemn eyes, and a
soft, warm nose. The very sight gave the boy courage, and at his next
whistle the old horse carefully picked his way down the bank, and
reaching down his long neck, felt Jacky's shoulder with his velvety
muzzle.

"Oh, Grey," cried the boy, "you must help me. You must do something, oh,
something, to help!" Then he made an attempt to stand, to get on the
animal's back, but his poor foot gave out, and he huddled down to the
ground again in pitiful, hopeless pain. The horse's nose touched his
ear, starting him from a fast oncoming stupor. At the same instant the
six o'clock whistle blew at the mill across the frozen river. In a few
moments the men would be coming home, crossing the ice, perhaps to their
death instead of to the warm supper awaiting them at their shanty homes.
The thought of it all gripped Jacky's young heart with fear, but he was
powerless to warn them. He could not take a single step, and he was
rapidly becoming paralyzed with cold and pain. Once more the soft nose
of the old horse touched his ear. With the nearness of the warm,
friendly nose, his quick wit returned.

"Grey!" he almost shouted, "Grey-Boy, do you think _you_ could take the
lantern? Oh, Grey-Boy, help me think! I'm getting so numb and sleepy.
Oh, couldn't _you_ carry it for me?" With an effort the boy struggled
to his knees, and slipping his arms about the neck of his old chum,
he cried, "Oh, Grey, I saved you once from dying at the logging camp.
They'd have killed you there. Save the mill hands now just for me,
Grey, just for Jack o' Lantern, because I'm deceiving them at last."

The warm, soft nose still snuggled against his ear. The horse seemed
actually to understand. In a flash the boy determined to tie the lantern
to the animal's neck. Then, in another flash, he realized that he had
nothing with which to secure it there. The horse had not an inch of
halter or tie line on him. An inspiration came to him like an answer to
prayer, and within two seconds he acted upon it. Ripping off his coat,
he flung it over the horse's neck, the sleeves hanging down beneath the
animal's throat. Slipping one through the ring handle of the lantern, he
knotted them together. The horse lifted his head, and the lantern swung
clear and brilliant almost under the soft, warm nostrils.

"Get up there, old Grey! Get up!" shouted the boy desperately,
"clicking" with his tongue the well-known sound to start a horse on
the go. "Get up! And oh, Grey, go to the danger spot, nowhere else.
The danger spot, quick! Get up!"

The animal turned, and slowly mounted the broken ledge of earth and
rock. Jacky watched with strained, aching eyes until the light
disappeared over the bluff. Then his agonized knees collapsed. His
shoulders, with no warmth except the thin shirt-sleeves to cover them,
began to sting, then ache, then grow numb. Once more he huddled into
a limp little heap, and this time his eyes closed.

* * * * * * * *

"Do you know, father, I'm anxious about Jacky," said Mrs. Moran, as
they sat down to supper without the boy. "He's never come back since
he started with the lantern, and it's such an awful night. I'm afraid
something has happened to him."

"Why, nothing could have happened," answered Mr. Moran. "The lantern was
burning at the 'death-hole' all right as we crossed the ice."

"Then why isn't Jacky home long ago?" asked Mrs. Moran. "He never goes
to Andy's at this hour. He is always on time for supper. I don't like
it, Tom, one bit. The night is too bad for him not to have come directly
home. There, hear that wind." As she spoke the gale swept around the
bend of the river, and the house rocked with the full force of the
storm.

Tom Moran shoved back his chair, leaving his meal half finished. "That's
so," said he, a little anxiously, as he got into his heavy coat. "I'll
go up shore and see. Oh, there's Alick now, and 'Old Mack,'" as a
thundering knock fell on the door. "They said they were coming over
after supper for a talk with me." Then, as the door burst open, and the
big foreman, accompanied by "Old Mack," shouldered their way into the
room, Tom Moran added: "Say, boys, the kid ain't home, and his mother is
getting nervous about him. Will you two fellows take a turn around the
bend with me to hunt him up?"

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